I’m just working my way through the Xway tutorial (b7). If I Publish my site then click on Show Site Folder it all seems fine (see pic 1):
However if I try to access it in Finder then B7 tutorial site appears as an Xway document rather than a folder (see pic2)
So I can’t see the Site Folder in order to upload the site. Any thoughts?
Roger
The Site document is a Mac OS “package” format, which is a folder (directory) that appears to be a single file. If you right-click or Control-click on that site icon, you should see a contextual menu option labeled “Show package contents”. If you select that, the Finder will open up this tricksy folder for you. Freeway does the same thing when you use the option within the application.
Walter
Thanks, Walter.
Incidentally, why are there too almost identical directories – ‘resources’ inside the Site Folder and ‘Resources’ at the same level?
Roger
I don’t know precisely, but perhaps Jeremy might be able to explain that.
Walter
Hi Roger,
If you choose Show Site Folder from the File menu, this should automatically open the Site folder in the Finder. You shouldn’t need to Control-click on the document package, and we generally discourage people from doing that.
There are indeed two resource folders within an Xway document: one (Resources with an uppercase “R”) contains resources that have been added to the document, while the other (resources with a lowercase “r”) is inside the Site folder, and contains resources that have been published. These are not completely identical: e.g. file names may be changed when resources are published.
It’s important not to change or remove any files and folders that are inside an Xway document — or you could lose data. This applies especially to files and folders that are outside the Site folder. Show Site Folder is a temporary feature. In future versions of Xway it will be replaced by an Export command that allows you to export a Site folder to a folder that is outside the document package. We’re also planning to add an Upload command that will upload files directly from Xway.
Thanks, Jeremy. Yes, the Site Folder opens automatically when opened from inside Xway. It’s when accessing it by another route, e.g. in Transmit FTP client, that it’s necessary to open the package manually.
Thanks for the info about the Resource/resource folders.
Roger
Hi Roger,
If you need to choose the Site folder in a file dialog (in Transmit or in another FTP application) you can do this by showing it in the Finder (Show Site Folder), and then dragging one of the files in the Site folder (e.g. index.html) from the Finder into the file dialog. This will cause the Site folder to be displayed in the file dialog. (See “Uploading a site” in the Xway User Guide.)
This thread makes me wonder how long it will be before there is an ‘Upload’ command in Xway? The present system is so long-winded and prone to user error if files newly-added to the Resources folder are missed. Uploading the complete resources folder by FTP after each change isn’t an option when the folder is 4.6GB.
Geoff
While you’re waiting for a real integrated solution, I recommend you investigate the options available in your SFTP application.
Transmit (my favorite) has the ability to synchronize two folders: one local (the site folder on your Mac) and the other remote (your server’s htdocs or similar). Once it syncs the folders, it will only update newer versions of existing files from the local folder, as well as any files that don’t already exist on the remote folder. This can make these delta updates very fast indeed.
You can also set it to delete files that don’t exist on the local folder from the remote folder, so the two are exact mirrors, but I generally keep that off for fear of removing something that might be important or unrelated to the site proper.
This is very similar to what Freeway did when uploading a site, and what Xway will no doubt do one day.
Walter
We’re working on Upload within Xway.
But as Walter says, you shouldn’t need to upload the entire Site folder each time. Most FTP programs (including Transmit and Cyberduck) have a Synchronise command which only uploads files that have changed.
Thanks, Walter. I will investigate that.
